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The Nightmare Begins
Cast: Almighty Tallest Purple, Almighty Tallest Red, Announcer, Invader Larb, Invader Spleen, Invader Skoodge, Zim, Dib, Gaz, Ms. Bitters, Professor Membrane. Plot Summary .]] The Irkens are a race that desire universal domination. Their leaders, Almighty Tallest Red and Purple, have just begun assigning the Invaders their missions for Operation Impending Doom II on the Convention Hall planet, Conventia. However, the most dreaded and infamous Irken ever to live, Zim, arrives. Zim was banished from the Irken Empire and sent to work on Foodcourtia when he blew up the other Invaders during Operation Impending Doom I. "Quitting" his banishment once he hears about the new Operation, Zim begs for an assignment and the Tallest reluctantly send him to a planet outside the reaches of the Empire of no real interest to the Irkens, which turns out to be Earth. After receiving a poorly-constructed SIR Unit made out of garbage named GIR, Zim begins his long journey to his "mission". Little does he know, however, that an Earth child has tuned into the meeting on Conventia, and is now alert for an alien invasion. Six months later, Zim finally arrives on a planet called Earth. He lands and creates a human disguise for himself, and a dog costume for GIR. Zim then sketches a picture of a "normal" human house into a capsule with a drill, which bores into the Earth and creates a huge underground base, waking up the entire neighborhood in the process. Zim then enters his new base and searches for a place to learn about the weaknesses of the planet. He decides to join the local Skool. His disguise fools all of the students, except Dib, who tries to prove to his classmates that Zim is an alien. However, they don't believe him, so Dib attempts to capture Zim with Alien Sleep Cuffs. After a lengthy chase, Zim calls GIR and has him take him back to the base. However, GIR leaves a trail of smoke behind that Dib follows. Zim hides inside his base, and the gnomes in his front yard destroy Dib's Alien Sleep Cuffs. However, Dib promises to keep on hunting him down during a long speech, after which he is driven away. Zim, dusting himself off and unconcerned about the human, contacts the Almighty Tallest (who are shocked that he is still alive) and informs them that he is working hard on his mission. Trivia *This episode is longer than any other episode due to the longer opening credits *Keef appears in this episode, albeit as a background character. The back of his head can be seen as Ms Bitters is introducing Zim, as well as when Zim is making his introduction speech, and the camera pans to Dib, although he is drawn slightly differently. He is seen again when one of the Skoolchildren talks about Dib being insensitve, and once again, one of the first children running out of the building as the bell rings. He appears a total of four times. *It is mentioned in The Frycook What Came from All that Space that Zim blew up every other Invader during his rampage on Irk. *In the scene where Zim is flying around town in his Voot Cruiser, the radio station he passes is WTFU. *The blue planet in which all the arrows point out from on the screen behind the Tallest, has been confirmed as Irk, the Irken home planet. The arrows symbolize the planets marked for "Galactic Conquest". *The disguise that Zim deems as being too ugly is series creator Jhonen Vasquez, and the disguise Zim deems as being too stinky is series director Steve Ressel. *Even though Zim drew the house with his left hand, Jhonen states that he is not left-handed, but that he's advanced and therefore ambidextrous. *It is revealed in this episode that Invaders have self destruct options on their gloves, seemingly in case their cover is under threat. *After Zim puts on his disguise, GIRs eyes flash for a few milliseconds. *This marks the first time in the series in which someone broke the fourth wall. In this case, when Dib pointed out to Zim, the camera moves over to Zim then back to Dib. When he says "Right there!" more clearly, the camera then moves back to Zim and freezes there. *The second time the fourth wall is broken is when the words Weird and Sitting fly in front of Zim's face and his eyes follow the words. *Almighty Tallest Red has light pink eyes in this episode. Both Tallest were redesigned during Season One. *During this episode, Invader Skoodge has various scenes with and without his PAK. *When the announcer in the beginning is mentioning the gift shop, you can see a billboard fly by with the picture of the green monkey that is in Zim's house, suggesting he went to the gift shop and gets it there. Changes and Cuts * The line "radioactive rubber pants" was originally "radioactive rubber ants", but the line was changed to make it more funny and original. * Originally, Zim had to fight a monster called the Digestor as a test of his worthiness. He ended up defeating it by giving it the sandwich Tallest Red gave to him. *The ending where Zim is reporting in to the Tallest was originally to be repeated at the end of every episode. *In the scene where Zim is destroying Irk in the giant robot, the scene was originally going to be much longer with the robot break dancing while shooting lasers and destroying more of the city, but it was too long, and therefore shortened. *When Zim first arrives at Earth, the caption reads "Six months later". However, it never takes six months to arrive at Earth at any other point in the series, so the time card could just be for the amusement of the viewers, as not everything in a cartoon has to be realistic. If this is the case, another example would be in Invasion of the Idiot Dog Brain, when a title card says that Zim has been waiting for GIR to exhaust himself for a whole year. Goofs *The milk carton in the refrigerator says “Rob Hummel is Meat”, but after Dib falls into the sink, it has a picture of a kid with “Find Me!” written below the picture. * When Zim gets his disguise, the legs of his pants keep changing color throughout a majority of this episode, though more frequently in the second half of the episode. *In one scene Almighty Tallest Red has one ring around his waist, but his waist has three in every other scene. *When Dib approaches Zim after skool and comments on his poor disguise, his legs are missing. *When Zim makes a comment on GIR’s intelligence, his legs vanish temporarily. *When Zim is asking Ms Bitters about Earth's Defences, Zita can be seen in the background, even though she sits behind Zim, and the given angle wouldn't allow her to be seen. *When Zim contacts The Tallest to report on his progress, there is a scene that is showing The Massive, the Irken Imperial Flag Ship, but none of the smaller ships are around it, despite the fact that The Massive is always escorted by many other smaller ships. *Once the Invader ceremonies end, when Almighty Tallest Red says lasers his teeth are the same color as his skin. *When Zim lands, the symbol on his Voot Cruiser keeps changing from the one-eyed symbol to the two-eyed symbol and then back again. *When Dib is going up to the board to compare and contrast humans from Zim, his glasses temporarily disappear. *When Zim arrives at Skool, Ms. Bitters' dress changes from purple to black several times. *when GIR starts singing the doom song his eyes glow dark blue for a few seconds, it flashes the same way when he exclaime's: "ooo whats that!?" whilst pointing at earth. Music * In the Beginning From the beginning of the episode to right before the Almighty Tallest Appear. * Smackdown Source During the Almighty Tallest's introduction. * Zim is Late As Zim is flying toward Conventia. * Zim Enters Conventia. As Zim pushes his way through the audience to get to the Almighty Tallest. * To Earth * Entering Earth's Atmosphere * Zim's House * Our First Chase * Dib Doesn't Quit * Leader Report See Also * The Nightmare Begins (Transcript) * The Nightmare Begins (Commentary) * Episode 01 Credits Category:Season 1 Category:Quotes: Category:Quotes: